Road Trip Diary Day 11

After a great sleep at the Hampton Inn in Butte, I was ready to rock'n'roll during my last few hours with John. That is until 8:50am when my phone rang. It was John. Calling to tell me he was barfing again. Ugh!!! We hadn't done any locations in Butte yet and I was bummed that I'd have to get another map from him and find everything myself.

But all was not lost. John had a Plan B. Her name was Sara. A mucky-muck at the Butte Visitor Center/Chamber of Commerce. At first John was talking about her giving us great maps and locations but it ultimately turned into something much better. Even better than John. Sara offered to drive me around. Wow, more rally nice people in Montana.

Sara was an amazing pinch hitter. She took us everywhere. Not just the locations I needed to shoot but to some touristy-type spots as well. In an antique store I found this:

Other than the spinny thing near the bottom and the engraved paque below that, it's an exact replica of the clock that I inherited from my dad. There were actually two in the store. And the owners of the store also offered to show us an apartment they had for rent above the store. It was at least 1500+ sq. ft. and I think they were only asking $875...furnished...with cool antique painting and photography on the walls.

We also caught one of Butte's main attractions:

Don't ask me why it's called Berkeley Pit. I'm guessing that whoever created it was expelled from Cal. It used to be a mining pit but then it started filling with water that is now saturated with all kinds of toxic shit. It may look pretty, but if you take a dive in there you will die...of poison...like a bunch of geese did. Maybe Jimmy Hoffa is down there somewhere.

After hitting up the Pit we were suddenly hungry - go figure - and Sara took us to a fabulous little sandwich shop called the Humming Bird Cafe. If you are ever in Butte I highly recommend it.

From there it was off to the airport. No, we weren't flying out. Remember this is a Road Trip. But I did need to check it out as a location.

The weird thing about the airport is it is flanked on both ends by graveyards. Not just one graveyard on one end. A different graveyard on each end. If you went to the left of the photograph you'd be in the graveyard where Evel Knievel is buried. I believe he is Butte's most famous native son. And if you go to the right of the picture you'd be in this graveyard...

...you'd be where 14 people, including seven young children, lost their lives in a plane crash this past March. There's no sign of it now but we drove through and said prayers for the families.

We left Butte around 4pm and headed to our next sleepover in Chubbuck, Idaho.

When we got to Dillon - the one in Montana not the one on Friday Night Lights - I was getting tired of Jaimie and Pumpkin so I sent them off on their own...

Unfortunately, no one else wanted them so I had to pick them up again.

And don't ask me why this place is in the-middle-of-nowhere-Montana...

...but this Bud's for you.

We finally found Idaho...

I have no idea why this photo came out yellow. My only explanation is that we were suddenly transported back to the seventies, where everything had a yellow hue...at least according to the ABC show Life On Mars. I liked the show but damn that yellow hue drove me crazy.

We ended up at a really nice Best Western in Pocatello (it borders Chubbuck where I wanted to stay but couldn't find any decent hotels). There were hundreds of June bugs to amuse Pumpkin in the field behind the hotel.

Oh, and one last amusing photo...in the very old fashioned Butte airport I found this techno-advanced toilet:

I decided to flush it for the photo but I promise you that is not my (or anyone else's) pee. The water was yellow. Really. I swear. On any bible you want to throw at me.


Miles traveled: 255 + the driving in Butte

Time in car: probably around 10 hours, including all the hours running around Butte

Went to sleep: at least midnight by the time I did some work on the computer